Author
Topic: Is a Squadron in a Wing or is a Wing in a Squadron? (Read 6779 times)

First I thought that a squadron is in a wing like in FS2. Then I saw the website of the 58th and saw that they just flip it. I became uncertain. Searched a bit, saw some articles and made the structure that way. Akula did it also that way.

Now Darkhalf argue that that will confusing a lot of (FS2) people. What is the right using of squadron and wing?

I'm not sure where you saw we had flipped the usual organization. I have a group of flights under one squadron, and four of our squadrons make up our airwing/arigroup depending upon what you want to call it.

From playing I was under the impression a Squadron consisted out of multiple wings Alpha, Beta, Gamma etc all belonging to the same squadron, at leats that's the impression FS gave me.That's not the only thing FS has messed up, in fs the biggest capship class is destroyer class and cruisers are below that.But in real navies I believe cruiser class vessels are considerably larger then destroyers. I could be wrong ofc.

Logged

Why Yes, I have looked up my Nickname and I know what it means..I\'m just hoping you don\'t..

In FS2, the words "wing" and "flight" seem to be interchangeable. I think official terminology has a wing of fighters being the equivalent to a battalion or other large group. So it looks like FS2 used "wing" because it may have sounded cool instead of accurate.

Unless I'm mistakened, the 58th's website states that they are an Air Wing, with a set of 4 squadrons in the air wing. Of course, with more pilots there might be more squadrons involved, but we'll see how it goes...

The organization structures of air forces vary between nations: some air forces (such as the United States Air Force and the Royal Air Force) are divided into commands, groups and squadrons; others (such as the Soviet Air Force) have an Army-syle organizational structure.

The Royal Air Force and those Commonwealth air forces which have adopted the RAF model use the following structure:CommandGroupStation (when operations are being conducted, Groups may directly control Wings)WingSquadronFlight

Further more, after (and during) WW2 practically all air forces adopted the Finnish tactics of using pairs of planes rather than flights of three. Two-plane unit is almost always the smallest tactical unit in aerial warfare. So a flight can consist of N*2 planes (where N is a natural integer)... usually it's simply a pair of planes doing patrol duties, or it could consist of two pairs, or perhaps three pairs if they are supposed to perform some kind of an attack/assault or intercept mission.

So, when speaking in actual air force terms, "wings" in FS2 actually correspond to "flight". I would also prefer BtRL campaigns to use actual terminology based on actual Air Force hierarchies, especially because it would seem to me that they do that in the series too.

Also you should remember that flight is more of a tactical unit, not actually solid unit. Different pilots may be assigned to different wings in different missions, although naturally they would try to use same combinations to get better results and improve co-operation... but in war time, planes are destroyed and pilots die fast enough that on flight level, the pilot combinations change rapidly.

So, any pilot belongs to a squadron, and squadron belongs into a Wing; flights are more like mission-specific units (and also depend on how many pilots and planes are left to be used), at least that's how I've understood the general idea. Squadrons are the smallest more or less stable units in aerial warfare AFAIK. And they consist of much, much more than just the planes. Chief Tyrol's team is part of Galactica Air Group; every plane or plane pair most likely has assigned mechanics and stuff like that. They are all usually integrated into squadron level.

Anyway, in these terms I would actually place for example Galactica's (current) fighter complement into a Mk.II Wing, Mk.7 Wing and a Raptor Wing, and further divide them into squadrons... perhaps two or three squads per Wing, naturally depending on how much ships and pilots they have at their disposal.

Together the three different Wings would be under Galactica Air Group led by CAG, who is under authority of Galactica Command (Adama Senior). Fits the picture, since they actually speak of "Commander of Air Group" (CAG).

Obviously, the number of Wings and Squadrons may be different from this example. How many pilots do we guesstimate Galactica to have? I have to watch the miniseries again and see if they show how many pilots they have in the briefing room (about); I guess that would be pretty good estimate of nominal strangth - or it could be half of nominal strangth, if the other half is in sleep shift. Ah, whatever...

That's a question of vocabulary. Here in France, as far as I know, the terms of "wing" and "flight" are as much interchangeable. All that is pretty sure is that a squadron is made of 12 elements. As soon as the terms are explained in BtRL, it should be fine whatever.